Archive for the ‘rights’ Category

Windows Vista includes an array of “features” that you don’t want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They’ll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won’t do anything useful. In fact, they’re working against you. They’re digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry.

All the computer’s I was looking at came with vista. *shrug* Consumers are not given much of a choice really.

Europe seems to be saying its alright as long as men start taking paterity leave and governments start inforcing their right to have it. Yes lets do that, but lets also get rid of this law.

This is very very very wrong. You shouldn’t be penalised for these sort of times off work. You cant avoid these things. Especially if you are a women. So you shouldnt be punished financial for it.

All this ‘choosing’ to have children. Why do the european governments encourage children with laws giving bonuses for parents to have kids in one hand, and make this law on the other.

If this causes people not to have children, europe will have some very big problems down the road. Ask germany where falling birth rates are causing social and economic problems.

I know how businesses will take advantage of every sort of bad law and make vunerable people suffer for it. No. This is too far and this should be stopped.

Lets not have another ‘training period’* law! Let speak out against this now.

[A law in ireland which says you dont have to get minimum wage if you are being trained in. So every fast food chain has a 6 month offical training period. ]

Socialist MEPs have called on EU social affairs commissioner Vladimir Spidla to examine EU equal pay rules in light of a controversial European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling, but the commission is not keen to act for now.

In a letter seen by EUobserver, Hungarian and Danish socialist MEPs Zita Gurmai and Paul Nyrup Rasmussen “urge” social affairs commissioner Vladimir Spidla to take “immediate action to assess and remedy a potentially major problem” in Europe.

“We are alarmed that taking maternity leave may be a cause of unequal pay,” they add, after the EU’s top court last week stated that employers can pay women less than men because they take more maternity leave and have diminished ‘seniority.’

“It [the judgement] undermines important European policy objectives aimed at increasing Europe’s demographic challenges,” the MEPs’ letter says, pointing out that the ruling could also discourage men from taking paternity leave.

The court rejected her claim against the Health and Safety Executive, stating that additional years of service allowed for greater experience which in turn led to improved work performance.

This justified the extra salary paid for length of service even though there was an in-built bias in favour of men who did not take time off to care for children.

Leena Linnainmaa, the president of the European Women Lawyers’ Association, suggested that the situation would only become fairer for women when men took more paternity leave, something most did not do even though they had the right to in most European countries.

“The fact that women take maternity leave is a great burden on their career,” she said.

“We strongly encourage men to take paternity leave and the countries that have no specific legislation on the right to paternity leave to amend their law.”

Emma Hawksworth, a partner in Russell Jones & Walker, which represented Ms Cadman, said: “Additional experience does not lead to better performance indefinitely or in every case. Employers will have to ensure their pay schemes reflect this. Where there is no good reason for using or continuing to use length of service criteria, it will be unlawful to do this.”

Sarah Harman, a leading family solicitor and founder of the pressure group, Families Action for Court Transparency and Openness, said: “To be penalised in terms of salary is a real pity. It seems to go against the run of really encouraging steps in the last 10 to 15 years, which have made women feel that they don’t have to put their children in nurseries and that they can regain the time lost. Length of service and experience are good things, but women who take time off can come back with renewed energy, new ideas, and a different set of skills

I wanted to talk about it as soon as I heard the news on the radio, but I was too busy that day and I haven’t been able to find anybody else talking about it.

But europe recently decided women dont really deserve the same money as men. Or that if you take time off work, work partime or need to take time out to look after a relative you dont need to be payed as much. Oh and a company doesnt need to explain why someone else doing the same job is getting paid more.

So how many women do you think will be effectied by that. I am so very very angry.

So everyone talk about this, contact your TDs and send them after europe. This is a wrong law we need to change as soon as possible.

Europe’s top court appeared to back this up when it ruled this week that companies could continue to pay workers higher wages in return for long service. The European Court of Justice, however, said employers might have to justify salary levels if employees could provide evidence that raised “serious doubts” about the pay rates.